Business brief: Morris joins staff

Pediatrician Dr. Andrea Morris has joined the staff at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle. Her practice is located at Baptist's Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, located at 2600 Fifth St. N.

A native of New Rochelle, N.Y, Morris is a 2000 graduate of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she received a bachelor's degree in biology through the Biology Talented Advancement Program (BioTAP). She received a master's degree in health administration from St. Joseph's College in Standish, Maine. She is a graduate of the St. Matthews University School of Medicine in Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands and completed her residency in pediatrics this year at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

Morris has worked as a chemist in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology fields and has conducted research on sickle cell disease at the University of Massachusetts.

She is a member of the Academy of Pediatrics and both the American and Mississippi Medical Associations.

"We are proud to have Dr. Morris join our staff and expand on the already excellent pediatric services we provide to the region," BMH-GT administrator Paul Cade said. "With primary care physicians becoming more and more difficult to recruit, we feel very fortunate to have Dr. Morris locate in Columbus. And, with her extensive history in community service, we feel she will be a tremendous asset not only to the hospital, but also to our community."

Morris has been very active in community service, volunteering time to "Mississippi -- Be Our Voice," advocating for the reduction in childhood obesity; serving the American Red Cross; and raising breast cancer awareness. She has also served as a medical advocate for rape victims, counseled rape survivors at a Boston rape crisis center and donated her time to "Pathfinders," a church outreach organization, where she provided classical music entertainment for nursing home patients and conducted collection drives for clothes, food and toys.